Sam Phillips was a waterman in his early working life. He tonged for oysters on Broad Creek near his home in Neavitt, MD not far from St. Michaels. In 1951, he built his own bay boat and another for his brother-in-law, Brister Haddaway. Sam and Brister bought the trees to build the boats from a local farmer and had them taken to a saw mill to be cut into boards. Sam cured the boards and then built

the two boats by hand with tools that would seem very primitive today.Later in life he worked for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources as Captain of the tugboat "Big Lou" used to service navigational buoys on the bay. Most these pictures are from 1960 and 1961.